1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to recording or disc playing apparatus and, more particularly, to disc transport mechanism for removing a selected disc from a disc storage and carrying means, in which a plurality of discs are located, and then loading the selected disc into the player and subsequently removing the disc and returning it to the storage and carrying means.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, player apparatus for digital audio discs (DAD) has come on the market which can reduce the time in which the information recorded on the DAD is obtained by an optical pickup. In order to store a great deal of information, many discs are required so that it is necessary to frequently select a given disc from amongst the plurality thereof to be loaded into the reproducing means. Thereafter, the predetermined information may be reproduced from the disc at the player device.
For use as a record player or the like, it is proposed that automatic playing apparatus called a record changer be provided and that the disc be stored and carried in an apparatus called a carousel. The carousel may contain any type of medium such as discs, cassettes and slide films radially arranged within a cylindrical disc compartment. The carousel includes at its center portion a drive shaft coupled to a drive motor capable of being stopped at a predetermined position so that the transport means may thereby take up the medium from the carousel for transport to the player means for reproduction or playback.
FIGS. 1 and 2 show a prior art cassette carrier, in the form of a carousel A in which many cassettes or the like are radially arranged to be individually removed thereform. The carousel is approximately cylindrical in shape and includes a plurality of compartments 3 each extending in a radial direction and having an open portion 1 at the exterior edge through which a respective tape cassette 2 may be inserted and/or removed. The radially disposed compartments are arranged with equal spacing or distance between each other and have their bottoms formed as rectangular guide apertures or slits 4 of narrow width in parallel to the direction along which the cassettes are removed. The inner ends of the guide slits 4 communicate with cut outs 6 formed through an inner cylindrical hub portion 5. Pins 8 protrude upward from a rotating spindle 9 and are inserted into guide apertures 7 extending axially through the inner cylindrical hub portion 5 so that when the spindle 9 is rotated, the carousel A will also rotate. A threaded screw bar 10 and a pair of take-up pins 11 mounted on the screw bar, is disposed at the bottom of the carousel A.
When removing the cassette 2 from within the carousel A as seen in FIG. 11, the screw bar 10 is rotated to allow the spaced pins 11 to grip the cassette at its inner and outer ends, so that when the screw bar 10 is subsequently rotated, the cassette may be moved in the direction of arrow X. Thereafter, the cassette is loaded into a tape cassette player/recording apparatus (not shown) and then played. After the playback, the tape cassette 2 is again gripped by the male members 11 and moved in the direction opposite to that shown by the arrow X so as to be returned to the selected compartment 3 within the carousel A.
In the above construction, the carousel A is disposed horizontally and the bottom of the carousel takes up a large horizontal area. Also, since the tape cassette 2 must be gripped and released within the compartment 3 as well as at the player device it takes a disadvantageously long time for the cassette 2 to be removed and inserted. Moreover, the construction of the carousel A is complicated making the loading of the medium quite difficult and also requiring partition plates to separate the various compartments 3. It was previously proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,402,935, assigned in common, to provide a record player and the like having a clamper serving as a fly-wheel in which a bearing having a concave portion is formed on a disc-shaped base from which a shaft formed on the clamper protrudes. A record, i.e., a disc is clamped by the clamper and the clamper is supported by the concave portion of the bearing and is rotated at the external peripheral edge of the clamper. However, the record clamper serving as a fly-wheel construction has a disadvantage that a plurality of discs cannot be disposed on the base and, therefore, a high density cannot be obtained and also that the base cannot be disposed vertically.
Further, in order to move an object such as the disc linearly, a driving apparatus had been widely used in which a rack gear is the crucial element. The rear gear is manipulated by a moving member such as a gear or pinion. A specific example of such as apparatus is shown in FIG. 3 wherein a slider 36 having a rack gear 43 formed along the full length of its lower edge is provided, the full length in cm being indicated as L1. To move a disc 15 from one position to the position 15' shown in phantom lines, a gear 45, fitted to the drive shaft 45b of the motor 45a, engages with the rack gear 43. When the motor 45a is rotated, it is possible to move the object to be carried by a distance D1 which approximately corresponds to the length L1 of the rack gear 43. If the distance over which the disc 15 is to be moved is increased, the length of the rack gear 43 must also be increased.